


Communication

by duc



Series: The Overprotective Med Team [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Anakin Lives AU, Gen, Redeemed!Anakin - Freeform, The Overprotective Med Team
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-06
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-06-22 14:42:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15584169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duc/pseuds/duc
Summary: 2-1B doesn't see why everyone is in such an uproar over Darth Vader, he's just another boring Organic.





	Communication

**Author's Note:**

> < dialogue > means character are speaking in Binari.
> 
> Also, make sure to hover over the underlined text :P

The arrival of Anakin Skywalker, former designation: Darth Vader, to Home One's medical bay made 2-1B7S's organic colleagues loose their mind. He was a monster, he was a butcher, he was going to kill them all in his sleep, they should let him die for all the suffering he had caused, how could they  look at themselves in the mirror if they didn't treat him, how could they look in at themselves in the mirror if they did? If 2-1B7S had had eyes, he would have been rolling them. 

He was an older model, first commissioned by the Perave system during the Clone War, and subsequently sold at a loss to "independent contractors" in the Outer Rim when the newly minted Empire updated to a newer version, to then end up in the hands of an Alliance cell some years later. 2-1B7S had been - to borrow an organic's expression - around the block. Organics fought and killed each other, it was what they did. When they came back mangled, 2-1B7S patched them up, it was what he did as a medical droid. That Anakin Skywalker had been a particularly prolific Human wasn't all that interesting, or even relevant to their duties. 

Of course, 2-1B7S'S level headedness, and prior experience with bionics meant he was assigned to Anakin Skywalker. It wasn't a bad assignment. The hysteria dialled down eventually, and the case was interesting. Anakin Skywalker wasn't the organic with the most cybernetic modifications 2-1B7S had ever seen, but he  _was_ one of the worst designed cyborg he had ever worked on. Turning him into a better designed one was an entertaining challenge.  

The man himself was boringly easy to deal with. First he had been unconscious and now he was too shell shocked to be anything but compliant. No doubt once he recovered some more, he would become boringly difficult. Such was the way of Organics. 2-1B7S expected no different.

Although space was precious on Home One, Anakin Skywalker had been put in a private room, for security reasons. There was also a guard permanently stationed at the door. Some of the younger medics wondered if those measures where meant to protect the Alliance from Anakin Skywalker (who they usually referred to by his old designation at times like these) or to protect Anakin Skywalker from those in the Alliance with grudges to settle. 2-1B7S knew that it was both. Today Anakin Skywalker was awake, lucid and Healer Eran, the biomechanics expert, had propped him up into a sitting position so that she could more easily discuss his new respirator. 

That made the guard nervous. 

Under Healer Eran's guidance, Anakin Skywalker was taking deep breaths, getting used to the feel of the respirator, and then carefully attempting to speak without the help of his old vocoder. It was during that exercise that Anakin Skywalker accidentally found the exact right combination of air volume, timing and bend in the respirator's tube to produce something like a whistle. 

The guard startled, hand falling on his blaster. 

Anakin Skywalker startled too, but he wasn't paying any attention to the guard, he was busy figuring out what had made the noise. He cocked his head for a second and then, tentatively, redid his previous actions to see if he could reproduce it. Once he managed that, he started playing around with it, pitching it up and down. It almost sounded like.... 

The guard didn't care about 2-1B7S's musing, or that Anakin Skywalker was merely amusing himself.

"Would you cut it out?" he snapped.

Anakin Skywalker turned, as much as he was able, broken as he was, to look at the guard. That made the guard tense, but Anakin Skywalker merely blinked at him owlishly before turning his attention back to Healer Eran, who was glaring at the guard.

In 2-1B7S's opinion, not that anybody was asking, the guard would do better to fear Eran. Anakin Skywalker, for all his fearsome reputation, had not shown any hint of violence while under their care. Healer Eran on the other hand, took her work seriously, and had taken to Anakin Skywalker the ways organics often did with puppies. She would not suffer an interloped interfering with her treatment lightly. 

After a few seconds, the standoff ended and Healer Eran went back to her checklist, while Anakin Skywalker listened with faint enthusiasm. The guard sulked. When it looked like no more entertainment was forthcoming, 2-1B7S bent back down to his task of refilling the gauze cabinet. He only resurfaced when he heard Healer Eran curse. 

".... I forgot the datapad in my office. I'll just leave you with 2-1B and Corporal Sercin here while I pop back to go get it, alright?"

The question was not quite rhetorical, it was part and parcel of the standard healer patter, designed to put patients at ease and check in on their anxiety levels. Anakin Skywalker reacted the same way he always did when the healer patter was directed at him, with bemused befuddlement. 2-1B7S could only assume, and his medical history supported his assumption, that it had been a very long time since anyone had talked to him in this manner.

"I am sure that 2-1B...." he had to stop to breath "And I will get along fabulously." he quipped

He turned his head so that he could make eye contact with 2-1B7S and nodded to him. He did not mention or acknowledge Corporal Sercin.

Healer Eran noticed and had to fight a smile off her face. "I'll leave you in his expert hands then." 

Corporal Sercin noticed too, or he was in a foul mood regardless, because he muttered, loud enough to be heard by everyone in the room. "That's right, leave him with the droid, he'll fit right in, he's as good as one already."

Healer Eran rounded on him, well and truly incensed now. If there was one thing bionics specialists hated, it was other organics' prejudices toward cybernetic implants and the people who got them. She approached him with, if 2-1B7S permitted himself the fanciful image, murder in her eyes. 2-1B7S had no idea what she did after that, because he was entirely distracted by Anakin Skywalker whistling again. 

 

2-1B7S turned slowly to look at the man. His auditory circuits must have malfunctioned. There was no way he had heard what he thought he had heard. Anakin Skywalker noticed him staring and his expression turned sheepish. 

2-1B7S was not in the habit of speaking in Binari. As a medical droid, he had been programmed to use Basic as his primary mode of communication, and it was usually a language he shared with his interlocutors. Nevertheless, he had to make sure. 

<What was that?> he thrilled, fully expecting to be met with incomprehension.

Instead, Anakin Skywalker shrugged. He licked his lips, and slowly, carefully, let out a series of hums, clicks and whistles. The process was laborious, and the end result a little garbled - he couldn't quite pitch some of them as well as he wanted to and others were substitutions for sounds he couldn't make. But still, it was perfectly intelligible. 

<He started it.> 

Well.

That was different.


End file.
